o anybody who proposes to act as a raconteur. Telling a story is a
difficult thing--quite as difficult as driving a taxi. And the risks
of failure and accident and the unfortunate consequences of such to the
public, if not exactly identical, are, at any rate, analogous.

This is a point of view not generally appreciated. A man is apt to think
that just because he has heard a good story he is able and entitled to
repeat it. He might as well undertake to do a snake dance merely because
he has seen Madame Pavlowa do one. The point of a story is apt to lie
in the telling, or at least to depend upon it in a high degree. Certain
stories, it is true, depend so much on the final point, or "nub," as we
Americans call it, that they are almost fool-proof. But even these can
be made so prolix and tiresome, can be so messed up with irrelevant
detail, that the general effect is utter weariness relieved by a kind of
shock at the end. Let me illustrate what I mean by a story with a "nub"
or point. I will take one of the best known, so as to make no claim to
originality--for example, the famous anecdote of the man who wanted to
be "put off at Buffalo." Here it is:

A man entered a sleeping-car and said to the porter, "At what time do
we get to Buffalo?" The porter answered, "At half-past three in the
morning, sir." "All right," the man said; "now I want to get off at
Buffalo, and I want you to see that I get off. I sleep heavily and I'm
hard to rouse. But you just make me wake up, don't mind what I say,
don't pay attention if I kick about it, just put me off, do you see?"
"All right, sir," said the porter. The man got into his berth and fell
fast asleep. He never woke or moved till it was broad daylight and
the train was a hundred miles beyond Buffalo. He called angrily to the
porter, "See here, you, didn't I tell you to put me off at Buffalo?" The
porter looked at him, aghast. "Well, I declare to goodness, boss!" he
exclaimed; "if it wasn't you, who was that man that I threw off this
train at half-past three at Buffalo?"

Now this story is as nearly fool-proof as can be. And yet it is amazing
how badly it can be messed up by a person with a special gift for
mangling a story. He does it something after this fashion:

"There was a fellow got on the train one night and he had a berth
reserved for Buffalo; at least the way I heard it, it was Buffalo,
though I guess, as a matter of fact, you might tell it on any other town
just as well--